


Not Much Innocence In Imposed Darkness

by ParadifeLoft



Series: Not Your Hero [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: (canon has been subject to intensive modding and is more like guidelines than actual rules), Gen, Internal Conflict, Interpersonal Conflict, Not Canon Compliant, jedi politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 06:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15358290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: When it comes to light that a temporary ally working with the Balmorran Resistance is also a fugitive from the Jedi, Rivka attempts to navigate the new regard the Order's masters hold her in as the Hero of Tython, and her own diverging views on justice and serving others' best interests.





	Not Much Innocence In Imposed Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> This story could very well also be summarized as "explanation and backstory for the character I have replacing Doc on the Jedi Knight's crew in my ficverse," because yes, I am _exactly_ that kind of person. (No character hate, just a different set of events transpiring entirely.)
> 
> Also probably not the most sympathetic fic in the world toward the Jedi as an institution. Consider yourself duly warned ;)

By the time Khisit Ffosavrow reappeared in the team’s briefing room, Rivka had almost finished cleaning dust and grime out of the crevices in her arm and leg. It was hardly an activity that endeared her to the rest of the soldiers who remained after the mission follow-up, focused a little too intently on the handful of workstations in the room; but the metal joints had started sticking before they’d even gotten back to the Republic outpost from the Balmorran Arms Factory, so as soon as the deal was brokered with the Resistance, Rivka had popped the limbs out and gone for her cloth.

She had just reconnected the ports on her leg when Khisit’s lanky form appeared in the doorway, pointed brow ridges raised in a self-satisfied grin as they brandished a datacard.

“Got your blueprints all decrypted,” they announced, leaning in and looking around and waving the card back and forth. “Already pre-converted to a format you can open on a Pubspace system, too,” they added, stepping into the room. “No need to thank me.” Despite this latter comment being directed, from their gaze, toward where Master Sedoru still sat at the front of the room with his own datapad, this was probably the best mood Rivka had seen Khisit in since she’d first arrived on the planet.

Hearing the announcement, the handful of Republic soldiers still at work broke out into a smattered round of clapping - no doubt pleased to hear confirmation that the mission they’d been loaned to was a success. Even so, that it was a Resistance slicer delivering the news and not one of their own personnel still lent the cheer an edge of tension. Khisit wasn’t _from_ Balmorra, as anyone who met them assumed with little prodding due to their species, but in most other ways from the cut of their clothes to their usual combativeness toward alleged Republic allies, they made it siren-clear which group they’d thrown in with.

“My thanks to all of you for your help on this mission,” Master Sedoru said, rising from the table once the impromptu cheer was finished. “Though if I may request the room cleared for privacy for the remaining bit of discussion?”

Rivka looked up at him in question, and he shook his head to say she was fine even as the handful of soldiers shut down their stations. Once they’d all made it out the door, he went to retrieve the datacard containing their entire objective - schematics for the Emperor’s station’s cloaking device.

 Meeting Khisit halfway, he took it and stowed it in a pocket of his robes, offering another thanks as he did so. The exchange was stiff, on both their parts - probably the way Rivka imagined her own first conversations with Khisit had looked, before they’d spent a good few days on the ground together forced to get over that awkwardness. But Sedoru, on the other hand, had stayed back with the coordinating team up until the final assault, and Rivka doubted he’d spoken to Khisit more than a handful of times, if that, with at the very least how keen they were to avoid to the Jedi. She also couldn’t quite help but suspect the awkwardness between them drew from how hardly uncommon it was for Jedi of the previous generation to carry a visceral prejudice against anyone with sith-like features, let alone full purebloods, but… well, unless she saw actual evidence of that in this specific situation, to _say_ anything of the sort would only cause harm.

In any case, the Jedi Master sounded perfectly civil to Rivka’s ears while he went point by point through the compromise he’d brokered between Republic and Balmorran interests in the cloaking tech schematics, even if Khisit continued sounding cross in their answers when he got to eliciting their assurance that their treatment of the computer files themselves was in accordance with those terms. Rivka had already heard and offered her own suggestions on the matter while the terms were being initially hashed out, so she only kept one ear on the conversation as she finished wiping down her arm and, finally, slotting it back into the connection ports wrapped around her shoulder.

The pins-and-needles sensation of reconnection flooded back down her arm while she stood to head up to the front of the room, bending and flexing the various metal joints to speed up the nerve reintegration processes.

“Everything’s on track for what you guys and Master Braga all want?” she said when she reached Khisit and Sedoru.

Khisit shifted their weight as Rivka came up to them, pressing their mouth together against the rings in their bottom lip and uncrossing their arms to shove hands into their back pockets. “Should be, unless there’s more nitpicks you’ve got for me,” they answered, glancing aside at Sedoru as they spoke. He just shook his head.

“No, all of the plans appear to be in accordance with the intelligence I forwarded to Master Braga,” Sedoru confirmed. “And Savrow has done well with the technological side.”

A flicker of movement in Khisit’s face caught Rivka’s eye, but it vanished too quickly for her to get a read, and the Force was likewise quiet. “Well, if that’s done with?”

They took a few steps back toward the door, until Master Sedoru held up a hand. “A few more moments of your time, if you don’t mind - I had someone who wished to speak with you briefly.”

Even as he said that, a third figure appeared in the briefing room doorway, drawing Master Sedoru’s eye and eliciting a nod to enter. Rivka’s first assumption was someone with the Republic, or another of Sedoru’s contacts on Balmorra who, due to the fragmentary nature of the Resistance hadn’t had an occasion to run into Khisit before, but -

The man who stepped into the room to join them, both in his dress and his sensation in the Force, was another Jedi. Not one Rivka recognised; he was a lightly armored human man, who looked probably younger than Master Sedoru, though the withered scarring on the latter’s face and the short brush of facial hair on the former’s made the comparison difficult at best. Nor could she feel any particular connection between the newcomer and Sedoru, and certainly not him and Khisit - any trace of Khisit’s good mood from earlier had vanished into a wall of hostile suspicion, their arms crossed once again over their chest.

And perhaps that itself drew the unfamiliar Jedi’s attention, as he’d only barely acknowledged or greeted Master Sedoru first before he turned to Khisit with an appraising eye. “Ah, Khisit Savrow,” he said. “I am pleased by our good timing here since your presence now saves my having to make an effort to find you on the base. I am Jedi Master Breluc.”

The truncated portion of Khisit’s name had barely passed his lips, before their thin mental rim of hostility flared with almost the force of a shearing blast into a full guarding wall that made Rivka instinctually flinch from the shock. In the back of her awareness, Sedoru reeled similarly but held it close, steady; and the new human, Breluc, seemed to do the same from what she could tell, just a twitch of a microexpression in his eyes.

“I am here as an official representative of the Jedi Council,” he said, making every effort to appear - not even the calm Jedi, but utterly unaffected, even oblivious. “And in that capacity, I am here for the purpose of bringing you into custody for violation of Republic law and the terms of your free movement agreement.”

Rivka’s breath fell stale in her throat. Either something had gone terribly wrong somewhere within the Jedi, or… Khisit had essentially lied to her. Half of what Breluc was saying now - procedural details it sounded like, mostly - seemed garbled by her difficulty focusing attention on his words and her own thoughts simultaneously.

Should she be surprised that someone who had, after all, admitted to working for a smuggling ring and now ran with a militarised rebel organisation, wouldn’t shy from implying falsehoods about their past if it advantaged them? No, not particularly. But what Rivka couldn’t see right now _was_ the advantage. Even though she could certainly guess at the meaning, nothing in the Order that she’d come across talked about a ‘free movement agreement’ or what it entailed.

Khisit’s sudden voice, steely and defiant, drew Rivka back to the conversation. “You’ve got some fucking nerve, thinking you can just come in here and snatch me up like me and half the Balmorran Resistance haven’t been _integral_ to making good on Jedi interests all across this damn planet. Does one hand not know what the other’s doing, or are you overzealous asswipes just that unconcerned with galactic politics unless it’s got Force-sensitives involved?”

Master Breluc’s lips thinned, and Rivka almost winced to feel the quashed anger flaring in the Force that he effortfully held in check. “This decision was made with all relevant Jedi parties aware of the situation,” he said.. “For point of fact, it was a team leader on the ground _here_ who made the initial report.”

At that last, Rivka caught him glance aside toward Master Sedoru, who returned the gesture with his own small nod. A sinking sensation began to curl at the bottom of her stomach.

But Khisit managed to catch the small exchange and take its meaning too, and before Rivka could blink, they had rounded on Master Sedoru, betrayal written in their hurt twitch of a snarl. “You called the Council on me?” Khisit threw at him, accusingly. “That’s how you show thanks for me practically handing you that cloaking device on a platter?”

Even with her newfound raw patch of mistrust, it was difficult for Rivka not to wonder the same thing.

“I should have gotten the hell out like I wanted as soon as you Jedi all started showing up, but no!” they continued. “You’d still be stuck trying to crack open Sobrik’s defense networks if I hadn’t sucked it up for the Resistance and helped you.”

Breluc’s manner was placid as a glacier. “Your file is listed under active recall in our databases, and has been for the past three years,” he said. His words sliced into the hostility thick in the Force, doing nothing to assuage it. “Master Sedoru did only what was expected of him for the good of the Order upon discovering your whereabouts - and whatever assistance you’ve rendered this specific mission here has no bearing on the reasons for your recall.”

A clenched hiss sounded from behind Khisit’s bared teeth. “I wasn’t talking to _you_.” Their fingers twitched, drawing Rivka’s eye; she saw their knuckles paling around the grip of their holstered blaster.

They were a good shot, the cover fire they’d provided during the mission skirmishes proved that - but surely they wouldn’t try to use a blaster to take down an experienced Jedi?

But they didn’t draw, merely stood as still and rooted as one could while tense enough to vibrate, and on that front at least Rivka’s chest unknotted itself.

Master Sedoru seemed to come to the same conclusion in about the same time; but when he’d assessed and dismissed the potential threat, his expression changed instead to a sort of cross between contrition and confidence in his own wisdom, an emotional projection that Rivka was well-acquainted with.

“Participation in a war zone does no good for your well-being, especially prone as you already are to contempt for authority,” he said to Khisit, sounding almost sorry, or at least tired. “Better you should return to the Order and learn peace first, if you would truly help others.”

A canister of high-pressure explosives could’ve done a good impression of Khisit’s Force presence right about then. Rivka swallowed her anxiety and took a step into the lines of their face-off with the two Jedi. “Masters,” she began, raising her hand like a placation, “Could you stop for a moment and explain to me what’s going on? Khisit has been an invaluable asset to our mission, as they said, and even if there’s an active criminal arrest warrant they’re party to, I don’t see why the Order is getting so actively involved.”

It was a gamble, a rocky one that terrified her even within the skittering, surface-skimming beat of her hearts. But if she didn’t trust Khisit’s truthfulness, Rivka realised, she did trust that they had their sense of decency in the right place. Not, if nothing else, someone who ought to be carted off in the custody of people they’d demonstrated several times they wanted no part of.

Sedoru was the one to speak again to answer her question. “Khisit Savrow was given to the Order as a child and grew up among us, that much you know, yes? Because they received some Jedi training but not enough to work unsupervised - did not apprentice with a Master or complete trials, that is - the Council came to the decision when they petitioned to leave that they would be allowed to live as an ordinary civilian if they did so under observation, as a safety measure. They would not be contacted by anyone from the Order except in cases of Force use, entanglement with the Empire or other Dark influences, or breaking Republic law.”

Rivka tried to keep her face and Force presence neutral, but as the details she was missing furled out - as Khisit to her left began to look more and more like they were furiously struggling not to cough after swallowing liquid down their windpipe - an outburst struggled just below the surface of her composure like the plasma of a lightsaber in the nanosecond before igniting.

“I neglected to request from Master Breluc all the details of the event immediately precipitating Savrow’s arrangement being revoked by the Council, because this is not something I was ever a part of - but the essence is that they were given a warning regarding criminal activity and subsequently chose to flee Jedi observation entirely,” Sedoru finished. “I hope that explanation satisfies?” he said. Breluc assented.

Rivka breathed in deep, holding her lungs full for a moment as she tried to think. Khisit had implied in their conversations that their separation from the Jedi was mutually consensual. Not true. But how could being sent back without their consent be any better than whoever made decisions on the Council not having agreed to actually let them go?

She took another breath. Calm. Rational. Dispassionate.

“If that’s the case, I don’t think whatever… judgement... you’re making needs to be quite so unilateral.” The words sounded like meaningless mush as soon as they were out of her mouth - Force, she was miserable at diplomacy, useless at anything that wasn’t either naked insubordination or smothering her opinions with silent resentment. What a Jedi she made. Someone the masters should _certainly_ listen to.

But she tried again, apparently unable to stop now she’d really decided to stick her foot in it.

“What I mean to say, what my point is - they’ve been helpful to us, and everyone I’ve spoken to in the Resistance regards them highly.  They’re risking their life fighting for an occupied planet, not - running _spice_. And the other pieces of that agreement, I’ve seen no evidence they’ve been doing anything to use the Force, and I sense nothing Dark in them.”

The last bit sounded foolishly incomplete even to her own ears, and she could feel her cheeks warm, but. Analytically, a mere week spent around at least one known Jedi, when they would have every motive to hide Force use they might otherwise employ if this story was true, was a poor sample - but at the same time, how likely would Rivka herself be able to pull off such a deceit, without slipping accidentally? And if it was their intention to pass completely, why even mention a history with the Jedi to her?

Breluc still looked skeptical though, and Sedoru simply resigned. Khisit’s face was an acrid smile, recalling a nasty bark of laughter. “Perhaps you need a brush-up on your lessons about species and Force sensitivity, Master Jedi? Dark isn’t something I need to _do_ , it’s just what I _am_.”

“Now, that’s not a fair assessment.” Master Sedoru was frowning. “A predisposition alone cannot overwhelm the weight of an individual’s training and discipline - not if it isn’t fed or indulged.”

Master Breluc’s expression had grown bitter as he spoke. “You ought to take a closer look at Savrow’s file before making any assumptions about what has or has not been indulged, Master Sedoru. Ordinary antisocial acts are just as indicative of the Dark Side in one with the Force. Criminal network slicing, illicit goods smuggling, violation and absconsion of parole...” If he hadn’t been watching Khisit the whole time he spoke, Rivka might have assumed he was referring to someone who wasn’t even there.

A dull throb pulsed in the side of her neck from how stiffly she clenched her jaw. “Masters,” she said again, clasping her hands together behind her back, curves of flesh yielding against edges of metal. Swallow pride, swallow her (increasingly hypocritical) hatred of _lying_ \- “I realise why you think Jedi custody is the best option here, but - there are cases sometimes where an individual needs a different option to find balance in themself than the standard training regimen. Trying to force them to work with someone more by-the-book just makes everyone frustrated and hampers progress. If Khisit doesn’t want to live as a Jedi, don’t you think that could be true here, too?”

What she _wanted_ to say was to throw every claim to being defenders of peace and justice in the Republic in the masters’ faces; ask how _just_ it is to deny a person their own freedom when they risk their life to secure it for others who don’t even have a claim to them -

She’d do it, too, if it was only herself hanging in the balance. _Had_ done it, or the equivalent, but before Master Din, where had it gotten her? She’d argue on principle for what she _knew_ through logic and the solid backing of the Force inside her was right, and more often than not was just summarily dismissed. Master Isaray, the only one who’d ever bucked that pattern, had defected and left her worse off than she’d started. And now through some miracle of the Force, most of the masters had changed their tune and thought well of her, because of Din’s patronage, because of the people she’d saved -? (Nevermind the people she _hadn’t_ , the tear in her gut seeing Uphrades die, the way everything she’d learned transformed from _defending_ to _slaughter_ as she’d cut a laser-focus swathe through Darth Angral’s ship...)

But for all Rivka knew, that good opinion could slip away like water through pebbles if she said the wrong thing. Even more than that, if she did so in advocating for someone else, what manner of unintended consequences might that have? Words, even with good intentions, could always hold danger in proportion to their power, the same way the Force did.

Better, she hoped, to echo her recall of what Master Kiwiiks had said about her work with Kira. If Kira had what seemed to be opposite feelings on the Jedi from Khisit’s, if thinking of Kira now only brought up another place she’d lied for her own convictions instead of trust the masters’ wisdom and justice… Kiwiiks at least had always been, to Rivka’s knowledge, well-regarded.

The manipulation still watered vines of guilt, though, no matter how necessary she called it.

But Breluc and Sedoru were silent, a muddle of something part contemplative, part unyielding stone, for several moments after Rivka spoke. Breluc looked briefly reminiscent of Master Kaedan, when Master Braga had spoken to her before the Council of the mission to redeem the Emperor - thinking them foolishly naive and idealistic, if probably not other things even less complimentary.

Sedoru was the one who broke the momentary hum of tension, looking appraisingly at Rivka, and then at fury-stiff Khisit, before turning halfway back toward his fellow Master. “Perhaps it is best if we retire and discuss this at more length in private,” he said.

Rivka almost flinched to hear him say it - as though he were, diplomatically, calling her interjections an unnecessary embarrassment to be removed. Which _wasn’t_ the truth; she knew the strategies for managing a conversation to stave off further conflict, and this was nearly textbook - not that it particularly helped.

Neither of them seemed to notice, though. Breluc looked displeased by acquiescence, but after another moment, he did it. “The ship I arrived with should suffice for the purpose,” he offered grudgingly.

The Force had by no means smoothed back into calm, but with those words at least, the conflagration he’d brought with him dimmed and snuffed as quickly as it had arrived. In its finality, he barely acknowledged Rivka. Khisit, on the other hand -

His sights turned focused and steely again, fixing on them before walking out the door. “I _will_ be informing the guards to this facility not to let you leave under anyone’s authority but my own until a decision has been reached,” he warned.

A sneer mauled Khisit’s face in return. “You keep thinking that,” they spat.

He didn’t deign to reply.

After an awkward sound that could have been either a sigh or clearing his throat, Master Sedoru favoured Rivka with a slightly pained, if appreciative, look. “I shall make sure we keep your counsel in mind, Knight Jaexyth.” Rivka couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be sincere or just a platitude.

As soon as he left, Rivka could sense a metaphorical hole being bored into her skull by the vehemence of Khisit’s glare. And she was still reeling, playing emotional catch-up and trying to sort everything out, from the existing conversational whiplash. “What is it?” she asked, unthinking reflex.

“ _I shall make sure we keep your counsel in mind Knight Jaexyth_ ,” Khisit mimicked. Their nasty tone accompanied a sensation like oil slick poison. “Fuck you.”

Rivka shuttered mental walls as the words hit her, and breathed out into a forced calm. Of course. Of course.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “and I’m sorry. But if you want to get any kind of trust and from people like that, you have to speak in their language. I was trying to help.”

“Don’t remember saying I ever wanted their trust,” Khisit said.

“But you _can’t_ want to be taken back into Jedi custody - ”

“And I can handle that perfectly well on my own, thanks,” they replied acidly. “So I’ll have to leave Balmorra, won’t be able to run around playing guerilla any more. I’ll fucking live.”

Rivka looked at them with uncertain eyes. “You mean running again.” How anyone could choose that kind of rupture, that volatility, when they had a chance to stay in the life they already had, with people who clearly knew and valued their contributions, if nothing else…

Khisit only shrugged. The apathy chilling their face contrasted dizzyingly with the violent roil of their Force signature. “Worked once, didn’t it? And the galaxy’s a big damn place.”

She was getting truly angry now, despite herself, and in a way she hadn’t with Khisit’s unhelpful comments before. Because now they felt personal? Because now she wasn’t distracted by trying to navigate the rest of the discussion? It was just the two of them now in the whole of the room, inactive computer workstations blinking their slow, steady standby, their collective whirring hum. She paced briefly. Khisit didn’t need to prove anything; Rivka wasn’t another Jedi Master who thought the Order’s version of justice was invariably correct.

“So you’re fine if they just keep coming after you, and you keep slipping free, until someday they decide you’re not worth the trouble any more and just toss you in prison?” Rivka said. “And even though I can only assume you won’t deserve it, you’ll have burned up any possibility of convincing anyone you might be trustworthy enough to let go, because you refused to negotiate when you had a chance? That sounds fine with you?”

She’d hoped to make Khisit see how short-sighted they were sounding - if anything, it did the opposite. She watched them shut down in front of her, cold and blank, arms drawing even tighter together over their chest. They just stared at Rivka for a moment, before they shook their head. “I don’t have to justify myself to you,” they said. They took several steps backward to the door.

“I’m done with this. Good luck with the rest of your mission.”

The empty hallway stood beyond the punctuating slow swing of the door, watching her in her final solitude like a rebuke.

 

* * *

 

Master Breluc cornered her the next day while she was running maintenance check-ups on T7.

That Rivka was spending any time doing so at all had been a point of consternation to start with - T7 insisted when she proposed the idea that it was entirely fine, and booting up external test programs was a waste of time, not to mention a moderate disruption for T7 itself, which it likened to an organic having to wait for local anesthetics to wear off. Her skill level with the actual dynamic coding of anything more complicated than a mouse droid was such that she’d usually defer to T7’s opinion and let it be, but Balmorra’s ecosystem contained such a sheer variety of hostile subroutines - between the Imperial security protocols, experimental technology, and any number of Resistance saboteur programs - that Rivka felt safer running a few basic speed tests herself regardless. If nothing else, the Force-attuned intuition she tapped into when looking over the test results gave them a independent source of information that she could use to corroborate T7’s more fine-tuned internal diagnostics.

She’d neglected to consider, though, that the time involved would allow a perfect opportunity for ambush by one or more of the other Order members at the base interested in taking her to task for the previous day’s disaster of a near-argument. If she hadn’t, it might have been enough to sway her toward forgoing the tests, or at least waiting another day or two until they were safely ensconced in a hyperspace lane.

Hindsight always did have the best vision.

But the interval when Breluc chose to appear was one where Rivka was simply waiting for a diagnostic’s runtime to finish, so she swung her chair away from the desk and rose to her feet. Curious whether the timing was simply a coincidence, or if it was more intentional - but that suspicion would get her nowhere. “What can I help you with, Master?” Rivka asked.

“Knight Jaexyth,” Breluc nodded. He was still wearing that same glower from yesterday, one that Rivka had begun to suspect might just be a general feature of his face rather than anything personal. Regardless, though, he didn’t waste much time.

“Seeing as you are an integral part of this discussion, it is time you were informed: Master Sedoru has convinced me, and I have gotten approval from our superiors, that simply bringing Savrow back to one of the enclaves for correctional instruction is not the course of action for the time being that would best serve the Order.”

Like air from a released valve, the anxiety accumulating since she’d sensed him coming drained out of her. Not only was she not about to be taken to task for doing something unbefitting a responsible Jedi, but at least one of her arguments for Khisit’s freedom must have gotten through to them. Or, perhaps from the way he’d said it, through to Sedoru, who might then have convinced others and applied enough pressure of combined numbers and seniority - ?

Then the actual words of his last sentence sunk in, and Rivka’s chest tightened again with consternation.

“Best serve the Order?” she repeated sharply, and then, reining her impulses in and modulating her tone, “I mean, I’m glad to hear it, Master, but I - think I need clarification to understand what you mean by that.” She paced, briefly, and traced a nail along one of the inside ridges on the data cartridge in her hands.

Breluc watched her, lips pressed slightly together. “Yes,” he said. “You of course understand the manpower shortages besetting us all - hardly enough Jedi to address even the most critical tasks, let alone anything less significant. Attaining the necessary supervision in our custody for Khisit Savrow is _not_ one of those critical tasks by any metric, and yet with ordinary civilian treatment off the table, the options left to us are limited.”

( _And why was ordinary civilian treatment off the table, again?_ came Rivka’s silent, irritable retort, before the part of her brain that followed the thread of party-line Jedi rhetoric recalled Khisit’s functional confession the previous day and had to concede the point.)

“On the other hand, considering your presence here and what Master Sedoru tells me is a certain existing rapport between you and Savrow, and the history I’m told you have of getting good results mentoring… unorthodox latecomers to the Order, seems to suggest another solution to the issue,” he continued. If he noticed the slip in her demeanor, he didn’t show it.

“So, as of this morning on the authority of the Council, Savrow has been formally reassigned to your command onboard _Advocate_.”

Rivka’s attention caught up with Breluc’s words a second later, and her throat went dry.

“I… what?” was all she managed initially. “Are you serious? What capacity, exactly, do you think -” before she stopped herself abruptly going down that line of questions, as she realised it might well be _this_ (whatever and _why_ ever _this_ was), or Khisit’s freedom being taken away entirely.

And to think she’d been naive enough to assume the untethered civilian life they wanted might ever have been an option that could make its way to the negotiating table.

“So, when you say _unorthodox latecomers_ , I take it you’re referring to Kira Carsen?” she asked, stalling for a pocket of time in which to compose some sort of useful response.

“Indeed. The Council appears to think highly of Knight Carsen’s progress and accomplishments during your mentorship.

“Pleased to hear it,” Rivka replied dryly; she couldn’t help but think of the irony of the situation, the certain piece of information that, to her knowledge, the Council still remained oblivious of.

T7 chose that opportune moment to let out a lengthy, plaintive whistling sound, flexing its joints and spinning its head around to refocus Rivka in its photoreceptors. With a guilty pang of gratitude, she excused herself briefly to go check on the diagnostic process; as she suspected, the second-to-last scan had just finished up and T7 was eager to get the final one over with as soon as possible.

Sliding her chair back over toward the desk, Rivka grabbed the datapad she had hooked up and started downloading the readouts to her own portable drive so she could go over them later. A twinge ran up her right leg when she sat down; she made another mental note as well to re-do the case alignment setting for the outside panels of her leg she’d opened up yesterday to clean.

“Alright then,” she said a few moments later, loading up the last program onto T7’s processors and trying not to think too hard about any of it, “if Khisit’s going to be working under me, what is it that you’re expecting me to _do_ for them?”

Breluc gave her a look suggesting that sort of comment was _exactly_ indicative of the reason he remained unconvinced by this idea. “Monitor their activities and either prevent or report any that flout Republic law, at a minimum,” he said, and Rivka knew enough to read between the lines that mere reporting would not be looked highly upon compared to prevention. “Likewise for showing any dark inclinations, _especially_ while engaged in any Force use.”

“From the impression I got, they don’t seem terribly prone to using the Force at all, much less according to any particular theological stance,” she commented dryly. If they had to have a discussion about Khisit without them actually present…

“So I’ve been told,” he replied. “Other than the obvious disciplinary issues, your charge is much as I assume it was with Knight Carsen. Provide a good example, of one who embodies Jedi virtues and does not succumb to the temptations of the dark side. The Council is quite convinced that your influence as such, _should_ result in yet another success story like Carsen’s.”

A suspicion clicked into place for Rivka then, one that triggered a surge of resentment in her stomach almost as strong as her distaste for this entire _disciplinary_ farce to begin with. This wasn’t about the Council somehow leaning even harder on their collective amnesia to promote her as a Jedi poster child than usual: this was about seeing Khisit as both a nuisance (if one they hated to give away jurisdiction over) but also disposable - a ready-made solution for evaluating Rivka in light of the vision Jomar had.

It was a bit scary how quickly her thoughts seized upon the notion of ‘failing’ this test as a way to get out of the whole Emperor-capturing mission from the start.

But it wasn’t a place she could comfortably stay for long. Almost as soon as the impulse registered long enough to raise some of that weight out of her, the wider spread of likely consequences followed crowded on its heels - the same blessing and curse that shaped all her decision-making. Because even if this assignment _was_ an evaluation for her, it was hardly out of the question that what _she_ did would affect what happened to Khisit. No reason the Order would have stopped its practise of moving subordinate members to supervision by stricter masters if the first master was judged somehow lacking, after all.

Rivka tried to tell herself there was no bitterness or anger lingering in the thought.

That was always the crux of the matter, though: the more skill, or potential, or authority she had, the more responsibility she would have to others. She couldn’t escape that somehow by underperforming relative to others’ expectations of her. It was simply an inherent part of her nature, an ethical requirement that came part and parcel to who she _was_. She couldn’t abandon that, only fail it. Fail the rest of the people in the galaxy depending on her.

Rivka stood again, clasping her hands and inclining her head. “I understand, Master,” she said. “I will do my best.”


End file.
